


Dog Teeth

by raidbossmadi



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Ficlet, mention of accidental self harm, vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-20
Updated: 2019-02-26
Packaged: 2019-10-31 23:07:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17858774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raidbossmadi/pseuds/raidbossmadi
Summary: You ruin everything you touch and destroy anyone you love.





	1. There's a Dog in your heart

A dart lands dead center of the dart board and might as well land dead center of her heart too. Ashe can’t say why she put the picture up in the first place, nobody else thinks it funny, she doesn’t think it’s funny either. They all know about the one on her bike even if they’re smart enough not to say anything about it. 

She walks up to the picture and pulls the dart out, she stares at it as she turns it in the palm of her hand the sharp point grazing against her skin. How long has been? Twenty years now, if they saw each other would they even recognise each other well he’d recognise her she was sure but how much would he have changed? Would he still even be the same person she had known, the same person she’d loved? If he had changed would it be her fault for not changing with him? 

She looks over her shoulder making sure she’s still alone as her crimson eyes begin to well with tears. She was just a girl when they’d met and he’d been the first person she felt she didn’t want to punch in the face after talking to for more than five minutes. He didn’t say anything about the bruises that decorated her porcelain skin, he didn’t tell her she was worthless, didn’t try to change her or take offense to her very existence as a slight . Maybe she fell just a little too hard. 

Her stomach tightened into a knot as the image of Jesse now older and rougher around the edges and next to him another woman their hands intertwined. She yelped as her hand closed into a fist and the dart bit into her skin. 

It wasn’t fair. 

How could he just move on and forget everything they had? How could her pretend that she hadn’t given up everything she was for him and he would just let go of her like that. She couldn’t let go, she loved him so thoroughly and had lost a piece of herself when he was taken. How could she move on when they never formally broke up? It would be different if he was dead but he wasn’t he was just not here with her anymore. 

Why did he stay away? Or at the very least try to reach out to her. Deadlock was a family how could Mccree just turn his back on his family. 

Maybe she was the problem tying herself worth to the idea of family. Granted she loved everyone she had taken in they were the family her real family could never be, but she couldn’t love them the way she loved Jesse. Every time she thought about moving on she would feel like someone had ripped her heart out and left it on the hot desert sand.

She knew if she looked there were plenty of guys who would fall over themselves for her. But she didn’t want to be put on a pedestal like that, Jesse hadn’t done that if anything he had kept her in her place. He made sure she didn’t get any ideas too risky for the gang, that she didn’t take every remark as a personal attack against her. Sure she’d done good for herself in the years since he was taken and Deadlock was stronger than ever but she still wondered if they could have been better if he was still here. 

She put the dart back in its holder and slinks back to her room. Bob looked at her with concern as she enters, her mascara running down the tear tracks on her face. 

“Go on get outta here for a bit Bob.” She shoos him away appreciating the comfort he offers but not particularly wanting it at this moment. 

She opens a drawer on her nightstand, an old picture the only thing inside. It was a picture of her and Jesse, she’s wearing a red evening gown and he’s in a suit with a matching red tie. It was from the night she had taken him to her school prom, after all the hoops they had to jump through to bring a public school kid she remembers the night fondly. 

The tears start coming again and she curls into herself. Maybe he didn’t come back because of her. Maybe he finally saw through to the person she really was the violent child who lashed out when prodded, whose parents couldn’t love her and gave her a caretaker who could never tell her what he really thought of her. 

Maybe _she_ was the problem all along.


	2. Lost and Found

When Ashe hears about the incident in Houston and is on her bike that night, it's a sixteen hour drive and she’s expecting him to stay low but she still has eyes in Texas. She’s been trying to get a bead on him for ages but it’s obvious that he knows how to fly under the radar, she supposes he’d have too he was in Blackwatch after all. That thought still feels like a punch in the gut to her. She knew logically that he must not of joined willingly but that just made her angierer, Overwatch took him when he was barely even an adult and they forced him to work for them. 

She didn’t even know what she would say if she found just that she had to see him. She couldn’t stay away anymore she was tired of feeling like she was being torn in half every single day. By the time she’s stops in Lubbock to refuel her sources have reported that Mccree is staying in a run down old motel and they have pictures to back it up. 

Once she gets there she loiters in the parking lot hiding behind a bush waiting patiently to catch a glimpse of her wayward cowboy. She catches him around eleven making a run for the ice machine and as he goes to close his room door her hand catches it before it closes.

“Jesse Mccree.” She starts closing the door behind her. Her next move is to slap him across the face, the sound echoing in the room over the sound of the news playing on the shitty little Tv in the corner. “It’s been twenty fucking years.” 

“Ashe… how?” He asks dumbfounded and staring at the pale woman before him. She mad he can tell, she’s very mad but when he looks in her eyes he sees something more, she’s hurt. 

“Shut your stupid mouth Mccree. I’m talkin.” Her anger is starting to settle but she wants to make sure what she needs to say is said and she’s not letting him charm his way out of it. 

“Twenty years, you leave me and don’t even think to write, or call, or nothin? Was givin’ up everything I had not good enough? I get to find out you’re working’ for Overwatch through the fuckin’ newspaper, some friend you turned out to be.” She turns away from him, she doesn’t want him to see her cry and she can feel it coming. 

“...Liz can I talk now?” 

She sniffs and holds up a finger. “One question first.” She dries her eyes the best she can and forces herself to look at him. “You been seeing anyone else?” Her heart pounds in her chest his answer will decide if she hears him out or if she puts a bullet between his eyes. 

“No darlin’, ain’t seen nobody since you. Why don’t you sit down.” He’s gentle in his tone even when she’s been nothing but hostile. He knows he’s hurt her in a way nobody else could. 

She sits on the edge of the bed intrigued to hear what his answers for all of this is. Even though she upset she can’t deny that she’s missed him, he doesn’t look all that different from when they were young; his beards longer and he’s got a few wrinkles. She notices the arm as well and anger boils inside her again though this time not at him but whatever hurt him like that. 

He pulls a chair up from the corner and sits in front of her. “Liz I didn’t stay away because I wanted to, I stayed away to keep you safe. They have eyes on you darlin’, that’s how they got me in the first place, they know your dangerous and intelligent and that they wouldn’t be able to win you over. They hoped that capturing me would have tempered your attitude but we both know that was never going to be the outcome.” He pats her knee and she fights the urge to slap him again. 

“Overwatch is gone now Jesse, you could have come back anytime.” That’s a lie and she knows it, he would have rightly assumed that coming back to the base would have had every gun in the Gorge pointed at him. 

“I know and maybe I shoulda sent word but I… I was scared. Twenty years is a long time you know. I just thought that...maybe you’d be better off.” 

“You’re an idiot, same old idiot ranch boy you was when we were kids. Twenty years and a tenure in Overwatch can’t even fix that it seems.” She’s smiling now god she missed him, missed the way he fidgets with his beard while he talks. 

“Come home. Please for me, come home Jesse.” She sounds more desperate than she wants but she can’t help it, he’s her family, her home. Even after all these years he’s all she’s ever wanted. 

He wants to protest but his mouth moves faster than his mind. “Of course.” 

Next thing either of them know their lips are on each other’s and Ashe’s legs are wrapping around his waist. Twenty years is a long time to wait for make-up sex and there’s a lot to make up for. 

Her hand is on his belt and before he can process anything else she’s fumbling with the button on his jeans. He lets her figure it out while his own hands find themselves at work undoing the zipper on her jacket, she’s still as good looking as she was when he saw her last. 

By the end of it all they’re tired and tangled in bed cuddling like two old lovers, one would never know they had been separated for so long. Ashe looks into his eyes and sees his soul reflected back she’s glad she came here and found him. 

“Get some sleep cowboy, it’s a long ride back home.” She kisses his forehead and curls into his chest. She’s finally home.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still working on finishing chapter 4 of Cigarettes and whiskey, but I've been having a rough couple of days and this ficlet is the result. There will be a part two because despite this coming from a place of hurt and anger I still feel the need to give it a sweet conclusion.


End file.
